Here's the (almost) best of the rest category. As always this ranking only consists of releases, which I own in some physical form. Like the title says here's the top seven of everything which is neither a studio nor live album. Re-issues are also excluded, while split albums form an exception from the rule. So taken into consideration were singles, EPs (I know, the distinction between album and EP can be foggy sometimes), split releases and compilations. And damn, I almost put Effluence's "Liquified" at the top, even though I heavily argued that it's indeed an album before. But then I realized that it already had been out there as a CD in 2022, so it didn't qualify anyway.
TOP 7 non-album releases 2023:
- LAIBACH - Love Is Still Alive
If you ever wanted to fail really badly at something, just try to unravel and seperate all levels of irony and earnestness, of ridiculous fun and highbrow art in the work of Laibach! On its own their "Iron Sky: The Coming Race" soundtrack walking bass Country song couldn't be a greater cliché, yet it's also a fitting and successful homage to the movie "Dark Star". But then in the next step turning this song into a full-blown eight-part space odyssey, which travels through all kinds of styles and moods is borderline ingenious. The sheer fact of this being from the same group stunning us with the deeply moving orchestral "Alamut" performance this year, makes the EP even better. 
Few artists have impressed and touched me as profoundly as Chinese-American singer and experimental musician Lane Shi Otayonii this year. Her performance at Roadburn already won my ranking of favorite festival shows and this new mini album, which consists of entirely different songs than she played there, came within a whisker of repeating that victory. On "Dream Hacker" her range of inspiration and expression between Eastern tradition and Western Pop culture seems more boundless and unpredictable than ever. Not from this world!- The secret to a great split release is combining artists, who feel like different sides of the same coin, so their individual contributions add up to more than just the sum of playing times. WV Sorcerer Productions bringing together Belgian primeval Free Jazzers Zaäar and Tennessean trio Spintria's wild genre hopping from Drone and Dungeon Synth to Prog, Metal, Grind and Jazzcore is a paramount example of how this is done. Both bands' longtracks alone are already fantastic, but the whole of this barbarically beautiful LP is an epic Avantgarde masterstroke.
- And now that we have entered the world of musical Avantgarde extremism it's only logical to continue with Sarmat's debut CD/DVD, on which the band introduces us to their own brand of Extreme Metal / Jazz Fusion with a significantly extended rendition of the "Determined To Strike" album track "Disturbing Advances". In my book we can set this as the gold standard for this specific genre hybrid.
- Even more electronically minimalistic than "This Shame Should Not Be Mine" this EP also continues the album's concept by exploring life after the trauma caused by the abuse thematized there. Three songs of "PTSD" are new, the other two are alternative versions of tracks from older albums in the recent sound of the Dutch Post Post Everything band.
- You didn't expect to find a double 7" with Great American Songbook classics from the 1940's here? I wouldn't have bet on this happening either. But thanks to T.J. Cowgill bidding his alter ego King Dude farewell with his most Folk / Country release ever here we are now. Mostly performed just on acoustic guitar with ambient sprinkles on top and drenched in his typical cavernous echo, songs like "Oh Death" or "Riders In The Sky" expose their eeriest side, which makes this EP the perfect male companion (or counterpart) to Reverend Kristin Michael Hayter's "Saved!".
- 夢遊病者 - SkopofoexoskelettWith a plethora of Classical, Jazz and ethnic instrument guest musicians and singers the enigmatic Far Beyond Post Black Metal trio Sleepwalker returns with four tracks almost impossible to pin down in terms of genres or even music-historical time frame or continents associated with their inspiration. The only thing holding this amazing creative chaos back from ascending higher on this list is its dramatic lack of length. Being even shorter than the predeccessing "Noč Na Krayu Sveta" the twenty-five minutes of this so-called album seriously just aren't enough.
favorite MUSIC 2023 - all my lists:
TOP 23 albums | TOP 7 live albums | TOP 5 reissues
TOP 7 non-album releases | TOP 23 live shows
TOP 7 non-album releases | TOP 23 live shows
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